Bats Fly at Dusk

Chapter XXIII

The manager OF the Bluebonnet Apartments opened the door and said, “Good afternoon. We have some very nice single apartments, one particularly choice with a—” She broke off as she recognized Bertha Cool.

Bertha said, “Just a moment, please. I might be able to make you some money.”

The manager hesitated, thought that over and said, “Well?”

Bertha said, “I’m looking for someone, and if you can help me find her, I think my client would be grateful — financially.”

“Who?” the woman asked.

“The young woman who moved in with Josephine Dell.”

“You mean Myrna Jackson.”

“Yes.”

“What do you want her for?”

Bertha Cool opened her purse, took out a card and gave it o the manager. “She’s a witness to an automobile accident. I’m running an investigating bureau.”

“How much?”

“Ten dollars.”

“When?”

“As soon as I find the party.”

“That’s taking a long gamble for a small sum.”

Bertha Cool gave the manager her best smile. “You don’t have to do much. Just tell me what you know about her.”

“All right, come in.”

The manager led the way to a ground floor apartment, indicated a chair for Bertha, opened a drawer containing a file of cards, and selected a card which had names and figures on it.

“It was exactly a month ago,” she said, “that she moved in. The maid told me that another name had been placed next to that of Josephine Dell on the directory. I asked Miss Dell about it the next night. She said that a friend of the man for whom she was working had moved in with her. I told her that the rent had been fixed on the basis of single tenancy, and she got mad and wanted to know what difference it made to me how many people were in there. She said that she’d paid the rent and that was all there was to it; that if two people lived in a single apartment, it made it inconvenient for them but it didn’t hurt the apartment any.

“As a matter of fact,” the manager said, “I think she’s right, but I don’t make the rules of the place. I only enforce them. A bank owns it, and they tell me what to do. Well, there isn’t anything in the agreement under which the apartments are rented that covers it. The only thing you can do is raise the rent five dollars at the next rent day, and you have to give thirty days’ notice in writing in order to do that. We have some regular printed notices, and all we have to do is fill in the number of the apartment, the amount of the rent, the date, and sign them. I had a notice all prepared, and I gave it to her, notifying her that her rent would be raised five dollars. She was good and angry, but that was all there was to it.”

“Did she say she’d move out?”

“Not then.”

“How long has Miss Dell been here?”

“Five months yesterday.”

“You’ve met this Myrna Jackson?”

“Yes, twice. Once shortly after the conversation when she came to me and tried to talk me out of raising the rent. I told her that it was a house rule. There was nothing I could do about it, and that I didn’t own the place.”

“When was the second time you met her?”

“Last night. She came in and gave me the key; said Josephine Dell had a job working for a man who did a lot of travelling and wasn’t going to be here, so they were giving up the apartment. There’s a provision in the signed rules by which the tenant agrees to pay a cleaning charge on moving out of the apartment. The cleaning charge on this apartment was five dollars. I asked Myrna Jackson about it. She said that she was not going to pay half of it, that she wasn’t going to move into a place for four weeks, and then pay two dollars and a half to have it cleaned, when the person who was already in there was obligated to pay the whole five dollars anyway. It seems the girls had had some words about it. I think they finally compromised, and Myrna Jackson paid a dollar, and Josephine paid four. I know there was some kind of a settlement they worked out. I think they were both a little upset about it; but it was Myrna Jackson who finally gave me the keys and the envelope with the cleaning charge in it. I told Miss Jackson that if she wanted to stay on in the place alone the raise in rent wouldn’t be effective. Miss Jackson really seems like a nice sort, exactly the type I like for tenants.”

“Did she stay?”

The manager laughed. “She did not. She said she had nothing against me personally, but that I could tell the bank that owned the place she wouldn’t stay in it if it was the last apartment on earth. It seemed she’d packed up her things and moved that afternoon. She came back to adjust matters with Miss Dell and get the cleaning charge straightened out. Miss Jackson seemed rather flushed and angry. I gathered the two girls had had some words.”

“And she left a forwarding address?” Bertha asked.

“There’s ten dollars in it for me?”

“Yes.”

“When I give the address?”

“No. When I find her.”

“How do I know you’ll tell me when you find her?”

“You don’t,” Bertha said.

“Well — all right. It’s the Maplehurst out on Grand Avenue. Miss Jackson is really a very nice girl. She told me several times she thought the rule was unreasonable, but that she certainly didn’t hold anything against me. Josephine Dell, however, was different. She was angry at me personally. She left in a huff and wouldn’t even come in to see me. I got that much out of Myrna Jackson. Made her admit it. It’s all right, as far as I’m concerned. Some day that Dell woman will want to get in another apartment, and when they ring up and ask me what kind of tenant she is, I’ll tell them.”

“Anything wrong with her?” Bertha asked.

“That business of crabbing over rules is enough, but there are other things I could say. Not that I want to say anything against her character, but then—”

“What?” Bertha asked.

The manager sniffed. “She worked for a much older man than she. A man who walked with a slight limp and used a cane?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Humph, I thought so.”

“Why? Anything wrong?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say anything was wrong, but he came to call on her two or three times, and — well, I’m not saying anything at all, but after all I’ve done for that girl, she certainly has no business getting sore at me because I live up to the rules of the place. Anyhow, that isn’t what we were talking about. You go to the Maplehurst Apartments, and you’ll find Myrna Jackson — but don’t you let on that you got her address from me, because Miss Jackson told me that there was a young man who was pestering her a lot and she didn’t care about him having her address. I told her I’d keep it confidential. She just wanted mail forwarded; said I wasn’t to let anyone at all have the address.”

Bertha Cool said, “I’ll have my client send you a cheque as soon as I locate her.”

“Well, that’s where she is, so you might just as well have your client send a cheque now.”

“My client,” Bertha said, “isn’t built that way. He pays me for results and not until I get them.”

“Well, I know how it is. I work for a bank myself. But you’ll find her there, and you won’t let on where you got the information from, will you?”

“Certainly not.”

Bertha Cool, the gleam of a hunter in her eye, took a cab to the Maplehurst Apartments on Grand Avenue.

The woman who ran the apartments, an angular woman with hair the colour of molasses taffy that had been slightly burned before being pulled, eyed Bertha with suspicion. “Myrna Jackson?” She had never heard of the woman. There was no one there by that name. She knew nothing whatever about it. If Bertha Cool wanted to write a letter and leave it there in case a Miss Jackson should take an apartment later on, Miss Jackson would get the letter. There were several vacancies in the building, but at present she knew no Myrna Jackson.

Bertha felt the woman was lying, but, for the moment, there was nothing she could do about it except pretend to be completely taken in and retire to plan an additional campaign.

The afternoon newspapers carried big headlines: Blind Beggar Sought by Police.

A job printer made a quick job of knocking out some stationery for Bertha Cool. By using ink which dried almost instantaneously, he was able to get her half a dozen sheets of stationery reading, BANK NIGHT SUPER DRAWING, INC., Drexel Building, Los Angeles, California.

Bertha took the stationery back to her office building, arranged with the elevator starter to take care of mail, and then went to her own office where she dictated a letter:

“You can sign that, Elsie,” Bertha Cool said. “I’ve arranged with the elevator starter to take care of any inquiries and see that they’re passed along all right.”

“How about using the mail to defraud?” Elsie Brand asked.

“Pish. When she shows up, we’ll give her twenty-five dollars and tell her it’s a gratuitous disbursement.”

“Think she’ll show up?”

“I’ll say she will. She’ll read that letter and think she’s won about five thousand dollars, but someone is trying to gyp her out of it. Unless I miss my guess, Myrna Jackson has something she’s keeping very much under cover. She is not going to make any squawk to the postal authorities nor anyone else and when I get done with her, she’s going to be a very, very good little girl.”

Elsie Brand whipped the letter out of the typewriter, picked up her fountain pen, and signed it. “Under your orders,” she said.

“Under my orders,” Bertha Cool acknowledged reluctantly.